[Caoimhan]

I was looking again at the Elsbett diesel, which is an extensive retrofit of a diesel engine to run straight vegetable oil. (NOT waste vegetable oil!). It involves replacement of pistons, fuel injectors, and a significant change to the cooling system... replacing water cooling with engine oil cooling.

I sent an e-mail to them:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'H')ave you done emissions testing on your engines? I'd love to get an emissions profile. In particular, I've heard that combustion of the glycerin in the oil creates carcinogens. Have you tested emissions for this?

Also, coking and polymerization are big concerns when using vegetable oils in combustion. Do you have any experimental data to show expected engine life?

[hotsacks]

Check out Dana Linscott's SVO forum at [URL=http://mauigreenenergy.com

[hotsacks]

Check out Dana Linscott's SVO forum at [URL=http://mauigreenenergy.com

[WisJim]

Much easier to run your unmodified diesel engine on SVO with a tank heater and preheater and extra filters, I would think.

[Caoimhan]

Apparently, it's a bit more complicated than that, if you want a good burn. Diesels are tuned to petro-diesel. Bio-diesel is chemically altered veggie oil designed to be pretty close to the performance of petro-diesel. SVO is much thicker, and contains components that are much harder to burn completely.

[Ache]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEX1YFXYTdI

[jlw61]

Thanks for the post, I've been wondering if used oil needed to be processed or not. Simple filtering is great news.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jlw61', 'T')hanks for the post, I've been wondering if used oil needed to be processed or not. Simple filtering is great news.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Renewables: AREVA, Duke Energy to Jointly Develop Biomass Power Plants in the United States
New York, September 24, 2008 — AREVA and Duke Energy announced today the formation of ADAGE™, an innovative joint venture dedicated to the development of green biopower energy solutions for U.S. electricity customers.

ADAGE will facilitate the development of biopower plants that will use wood waste to produce electricity. According to the agreement, AREVA will design and build biomass power plants. Duke Energy Generation Services (DEGS), a commercial power business unit of Duke Energy that owns and develops renewable energy, will manage operations. For each project, ADAGE also will negotiate power purchase agreements and fuel contracts, and secure suitable sites. Hence, ADAGE will provide customers a fully integrated solution.

"This project comes at exactly the right time as Americans face soaring energy prices and look to meet rising electricity demand with green energy sources. The ADAGE biopower facilities will respond to our nation's need for new baseload energy alternatives," said Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. Biopower has great potential. Federal and state environmental agencies consider biopower carbon neutral, a significant advantage over traditional power facilities.

The impact of biopower facilities on our economy is just as important; these facilities will create hundreds of new, green-collar jobs. In addition, the utilization of biomass as an abundant domestic resource reduces America's reliance on imported fuels.

"Based on the strengths and experiences of Duke Energy and AREVA, ADAGE is well positioned to win a significant portion of the rapidly expanding U.S. biomass market," said Reed Wills, President of ADAGE. "Biomass provides an alternative baseload power source for states concerned with CO2 emissions. We are committed to partnering with fuel suppliers, power companies and state and local communities to develop mutually beneficial projects."
link

[TheAntiDoomer]

I know Robert Rapier is a big fan of Rentech:

http://www.greentechmedia.com/green-lig ... hnologies/

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he ‘581 patent describes a process of rapidly heating biomass with hot sand using a reactor that has a fluid bed of sand. According to the ‘581 patent:

This invention comprises the unexpected discovery that it is possible to gasify biomass at very high wood throughputs but in an entrained gasifier operating at low inlet gas velocities.

[noorani]

It is good to know that some companies like Virgin Atlantic and others and others are finally taking a hard look at using this for jet fuel

[Graeme]

Small-Scale Biomass Power Plants Could Stabilize National Power Grid, Help Local Economies, Research Finds

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')mall-scale biomass plants could provide substantial benefits to the economies of rural areas, as well as doing a great deal to help stabilize the national grid, according to new research from the University of Missouri.

The research found — as you probably would expect — that it can be notably cheaper for rural areas to generate their own electricity rather than import it from urban regions via expensive infrastructure.

Transporting power through power lines to remote, rural areas is very inefficient and can be expensive for farmers and other rural citizens,” explained Tom Johnson, the Frank Miller Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics in the MU College of Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources and professor in the MU Truman School of Public Affairs. “Farmers already have access to a large amount of biomass material left over each year after harvests. If they had access to small biomass power plants, they could become close to self-sustaining in terms of power. If the grid was improved enough, they could even provide additional power to other people around the country, helping to stabilize the national power grid. This could help save rural citizens money and be a boon for rural economies.”

The researchers note that if/once people in these rural areas become bioenergy producers, the great many other advantages of such a setup would become readily apparent. The most notable of these advantages is the potential attraction of new industry and economic activity, the researchers argue.

[Graeme]

DTE Energy's Northern California biomass plant begins operations

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he new biomass plant, which began operation in 1989 as a coal-fired power facility, ceased operation in April 2009. DTEES purchased it in June 2010 with plans to convert the plant to biomass. The fuel for the facility is primarily derived from urban wood waste, tree trimmings and agricultural processes.

"We are excited to have this green energy plant operational and appreciate the support we've received from the Port of Stockton, local officials and community leaders to make it a reality," said Steve Sorrentino, vice president, Wholesale Power & Renewables, DTEES. "We recognize the positive economic impact of this facility on the community and look forward to partnering with the city of Stockton for many years to come."

The site, once one of the most polluted in San Joaquin Valley, now is home to one of the cleanest solid-fuel power plants in the country. According to DTEES, the plant is providing 35 high-quality jobs and another 100 indirectly involved with DTE Stockton's fuel supply infrastructure. At its peak, the construction project employed about 100 workers.

[Graeme]

Is biomass the boiler of the future?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ith oil prices on the rise just about all the time and growing concerns over clean, renewable energy, biomass boilers have taken center stage in the debate over what is the most effective and efficient heating source.

In that vein, the company EvoWorld, which manufactures biomass heating systems, went before the Athens Village Board recently to make their pitch for what company representatives call a clean, renewable and sustainable form of energy.

Biomass boilers utilize either wood chips or pellets as a heat source, and while the village is not currently in the market for a new boiler for any of its facilities, they want to keep on top of what’s out there. Moreover, if the village eventually moves ahead with its plans to build a new highway garage, a new heating system would be one of the decisions officials would have to make.
Enter EvoWorld, which has been traveling to various village boards and town councils around Greene County, touting the benefits of its systems, which provide both heat and hot water.

According to Paul Brown from EvoWorld, the company originated in Austria more than 15 years ago, and started manufacturing in the United States in 2012. Its world headquarters are located in nearby Troy, New York.

“We offer renewable, sustainable energy and we can cut down on your energy costs,” Brown told village officials.

He added that while some people associate biomass boilers with traditional outdoor wood stoves, biomass units are much cleaner and have significantly reduced the amount of carbon dioxide they release.

“This is very clean combustion,” Brown said, later adding, “We are over 90% efficient on all models.”

EvoWorld’s biomass boilers are self-loading, using either wood chips or pellets, have automatic startup and shutdown, and are computer controlled, Brown said, so they are easy to operate. The ashes generated by the burning chips or pellets do have to be removed manually every couple of months, though.

Brown said the cost savings compared to oil heat are significant. For instance, if a customer typically spends $40,000 a year to heat with oil, the cost to generate the same amount of heat with wood chips would be $11,852, a savings of over $28,000. Pellets are slightly more pricey, costing $22,222 for the same amount of heat, but that would still represent a savings of $17,778 a year.

Brown pointed out that in order to be comparable in price to wood chips, oil would have to be priced at 70-cents a gallon “to produce the same amount of fuel.”

Where do the chips or pellets come from? The village could either purchase them from EvoWorld or another vendor, and in some cases could even make them.

Village Trustee Robert June asked, “Can we grind down our brush pile and use that?”

Brown said they could, but once they have been chipped the material would need to be kept dry in order to be usable as a heating source.
He said biomass boilers do cost more to purchase than a traditional boiler that runs on oil – the latter would cost roughly $5,000 to install in a residential home, while a pellet boiler would cost closer to $12,000 — but he promised a quick return on investment because of the energy savings.

[rollin]

Just one more way to interrupt the methods of nature. Just one more knot in the rope that we will hang ourselves with.

[Graeme]

Energy Authority Pegs $20 Million to Build 14 Biomass Boilers

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Alaska Energy Authority will be building 14 biomass boiler projects this year, and six of those projects will be sharing $20 million from the state's Renewable Energy Fund.

The Juneau Empire reports the six projects are located in Galena, Kake, Ketchikan, Haines, Minto, and Yakutat.

Eight more boilers make up a second tier of the organization's to-do list.

Biomass boilers are built to heat one or more buildings. They can be stoked with cord wood, wood chips or wood pellets and have become popular with the rise of heating oil prices.

Pellets are usually from compressed wood scraps, a potential secondary product from Southeast Alaska's sawmills.

In 2010, Sealaska Corp. installed the state's first large-scale pellet boiler at its Juneau headquarters.

[Graeme]

U.S. Biomass Energy Consumption Grows 60% from 2002 to 2013

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U').S. biomass energy consumption grew more than 60% from 2002 to 2013. This growth is almost entirely due to increased consumption of biomass to produce biofuels, mainly ethanol but also a smaller amount of biodiesel and other biomass-based diesel fuels. In 2013, biomass accounted for about half of all renewable energy consumed and 5% of total U.S. energy consumed.

The major U.S. biomass energy sources are:

Wood, including wood-derived fuels such as charcoal and byproducts of paper production.
Waste, including municipal solid waste, landfill gas, sludge waste, agricultural byproducts, and others.
Organic raw material inputs (feedstocks) used to produce biofuels.
From 2002 to 2013, biomass energy converted to biofuels grew more than 500% as U.S. production of ethanol and biodiesel grew. On average, 60% of the energy in feedstocks is converted to deliverable biofuels. The remainder becomes energy losses or coproducts, which are measured as energy consumed by the industrial sector. Most biofuels are consumed as blended transportation fuels—ethanol blended with motor gasoline or biodiesel blended with diesel fuel. Some biodiesel is used as heating oil.

Consumption of wood and waste energy increased just 4% over this period as increases in the consumption of waste energy exceeded increases in wood use. About two-thirds of U.S. wood energy is consumed for industrial processes. Nearly all U.S. waste energy is consumed for electric generation or industrial processes.

Biofuel feedstocks include agricultural crops and other plant material, animal byproducts, and recycled waste. Corn is the feedstock for nearly all of the ethanol produced in the United States. Biodiesel is produced from a more diverse array of biomass resources, led by soybean oil, which accounted for more than 50% in 2013. Recycled waste, such as waste cooking oil, accounted for a little over 10% in 2013.

[Graeme]

Carving out a future for biomass conversion to jet fuel

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'L')ignocellulose, a raw material in biomass, can be converted to biofuels and is often considered a long-term alternative to the diminishing supply of fossil fuels. The conversion process involves biomass pretreatment, hydrolysis of constituent carbohydrates and catalytic conversion of platform chemicals. Proposed strategies to convert lignocellulose to aviation fuels have underused components, preventing their commercialisation.

A collaboration between several research groups has taken a hydrolysis-based approach to produce aviation fuel from red maple biomass. The proposed method focuses on synthesising levulinic acid and furfural from lignocellulosic 5- and 6-carbon sugars and catalytically upgrading these to jet fuel range alkanes. This combined techno-economic analysis considers several possible processing options at points throughout the procedure and combines the most viable to create a comprehensive conversion process, which can produce jet fuel priced at $4.75 (£2.88) per gallon. ‘We wanted to understand how the individual processes interlink with each other and how impurities cause problems with downstream processing,’ explains Aniruddha Upadhye, of George Huber’s research group at the University of Wisconsin in the US.

Compared to jet fuel prices today of around $3.00, $4.75 seems a little steep. ‘The researchers are very forthcoming about the current limitations of this approach. With a total capital investment of about $12 per annual gallon of liquid fuel, and 40% of total operating costs devoted to wastewater treatment, additional work is clearly needed,’ says Bruce Dale, a biomass conversion expert at Michigan State University in the US. In fact, the economic analysis flags up several main areas requiring further research to reduce cost. The main operating cost is the treatment of wastewater used in the hydrolysis steps. Improving the recyclability of wastewater and replacing expensive platinum-based catalysts could see the minimum price per gallon drop to a competitive $2.88 against conventional jet fuels.

Upadhye foresees no major problems in scaling up the technologies for commercial use, but further investigation is required into the recovery of products and separation of components to maintain high carbon yields throughout the entire process. ‘It is a critical step in the right direction and many studies in the future will be benchmarked with this work,’ adds Oliver Inderwildi, an expert in biofuels at the University of Oxford, UK.